Related papers: Confinement of knotted polymers in a slit
We investigate the sliding strength of thin filaments in frictional contact with a translating cylinder, perpendicular to the filaments' axes, in knotted (clove hitch) and unknotted (capstan) configurations. Recent work reported superlinear…
We consider an inextensible, semiflexible polymer or worm-like chain which is confined in the transverse direction by a parabolic potential and subject to a longitudinal force at the ends, so that the polymer is stretched out and…
We consider the folding of a self-avoiding homopolymer on a lattice, with saturating hydrogen bond interactions. Our goal is to numerically evaluate the statistical distribution of the topological genus of pseudoknotted configurations. The…
The statistical mechanics of polymer loops entangled in the two-dimensional array of randomly distributed obstacles of infinite length is discussed. The area of the loop projected to the plane perpendicular to the obstacles is used as a…
We prove the fractal crumpled structure of collapsed unknotted polymer ring. In this state the polymer chain forms a system of densely packed folds, mutually separated in all scales. The proof is based on the numerical and analytical…
As the size of an optical vortex knot, imprinted in a coherent light beam, is decreased, nonparaxial effects alter the structure of the knotted optical singularity. For knot structures approaching the scale of wavelength, longitudinal…
We present a statistical mechanical study of stiff polymers, motivated by experiments on actin filaments and the considerable current interest in polymer networks. We obtain simple, approximate analytical forms for the force-extension…
Semiflexible polymers are widely used as a paradigm for understanding structural phases in biomolecules including folding of proteins. Here, we compare bead-spring and bead-stick variants of coarse-grained semiflexible polymer models that…
Using molecular dynamics simulation, we investigate the effect of confinement on a system that comprises several stiff segmented polymer chains where each chain has similar segments, but length and stiffness of the segments vary among the…
The study of knots and links from a probabilistic viewpoint provides insight into the behavior of "typical" knots, and opens avenues for new constructions of knots and other topological objects with interesting properties. The knotting of…
Two ring polymers close to each other in space may be either in a segregated phase if there is a strong repulsion between monomers in the polymers, or intermingle in a mixed phase if there is a strong attractive force between the monomers.…
We study a model of a semiflexible long chain polymer confined to a two-dimensional slit of width $w$, and interacting with the walls of the slit. The interactions with the walls are controlled by Boltzmann weights $a$ and $b$, and the…
How the geometry of nano-sized confinement affects dynamics of biomaterials is interesting yet poorly understood. An elucidation of structural details upon nano-sized confinement may benefit manufacturing pharmaceuticals in biomaterial…
The shape of semiflexible polymer rings is studied over their whole range of flexibility. Investigating the joint distribution of asphericity and nature of asphericity as well as their respective averages we find two distinct shape regimes…
We develop a theoretical description of the topological disentanglement occurring when torus knots reach the ends of a semi-flexible polymer under tension. These include decays into simpler knots and total unknotting. The minimal number of…
Molecular dynamics simulation of a generic polymer model is applied to study melts of polymers with different types of intrinsic stiffness. Important static observables of the single chain such as gyration radius or persistence length are…
We present using simple scaling arguments and one step replica symmetry breaking a theory for the localization of semiflexible polymers in a quenched random environment. In contrast to completely flexible polymers, localization of…
The number of configurations of a polymer is reduced in the presence of a barrier or an obstacle. The resulting loss of entropy adds a repulsive component to other forces generated by interaction potentials. When the obstructions are scale…
Twist stiffness and an asymmetric bending stiffness of a polymer or a polymer bundle is captured by the elastic ribbon model. We investigate the effects a ring geometry induces to a thermally fluctuating ribbon, finding bend-bend coupling…
The stretchability of polymeric materials is critical to many applications such as stretchable electronics and soft robotics, yet the stretchability of conventional cross-linked linear polymers is limited by the entanglements between…